The sheer amount of talent flying around in the 90s was crazy and the competition was so fierce that it made artist strive to outdo everyone else.
The net with its homogenizing effect bought a lot to the table and killed a lot as well. For example people use the same sounds whereas back then no one knew what was in the lab or how you'd tweaked the presets etc... that and a joint would only drop once it was ready and nobody wanted to overtly jock someones style.
Well until
NJS dropped then all off a sudden it became OK to be Toddy Raley but we let that slide because the tracks went so hard in the club. Even though in retrospect it sounded like one big ass blend with minor variations and artists that were virtually indistinguishable as everyone tried to sound the same. Spoke on it previously as its very similar to the Trap wave in modern times:
Check it: Both started off as a small, local offshoot styles of production that had their own distinct sound from the parent genre. Both blew up so that everyone started biting/being influenced by the wave. Both had people switching their styles up, thematically as well as musically...
www.thecoli.com
Its amazing how the mixes can totally flip a vocal performance and change the mood of a tune. Loads of times they'd drop white labels of songs to find out what the reaction was like on the floor and either the artist would vanish, never to be heard from or
have their song redone by someone famous to become a huge commercial hit, best example:
Same with Return Of The Mack. I first heard it around a year or two before the promo dropped as Mark was performing in this super rough spot at 4AM as the closing act before he'd got signed and I knew it would be a huge smash because the entire crowd came back to life and he sang it back to back and had the scene on smash.
soundcloud.com
shes an unsigned artist looking for a level up.
i am due to supervise night-shift in about 5-6 hours. so just chilling sorting out files, emailing, checking this and that.